House - indeterminate date, Aucloggeen, Co. Galway

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House – indeterminate date, Aucloggeen, Co. Galway

In a field at Aucloggeen in north County Galway, a large oval enclosure sits in level grassland, its drystone walls still broadly intact after an unknown number of centuries.

What makes it quietly odd is how a modern townland boundary cuts straight through it, slicing the monument at both its eastern and western sides as though the administrative map-makers simply drew their line and moved on. The southern portion of the enclosing wall survives best, and it is within that southern half of the interior that the site's most legible remains are concentrated.

The enclosure is a cashel, a type of stone-walled ringfort that served as a farmstead enclosure in early medieval Ireland, typically housing a family and their livestock within a roughly circular or oval perimeter. This one measures around 44 metres east to west and nearly 39 metres north to south, making it a substantial example. Inside, two structures survive. The larger of the two is a rectangular building, roughly 10 metres long and just over 6 metres wide, with an internal division marked out by a line of boulders and smaller stones, suggesting at least two distinct rooms or functional areas. To its east sits a much smaller D-shaped structure, less than 2 metres long and just over a metre wide, built in a similar drystone style and possibly used as a hut or ancillary shelter. The date of occupation remains unresolved, which is not unusual for sites of this kind; without excavation, cashels and their associated buildings can be frustratingly difficult to place in time.

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Pete F
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